The Top-Level Domain (TLD) you referred to, XN—H2BRJ9C8C, is an Internationalized Country Code Top-Level Domain (IDN ccTLD). Specifically, it is the IDN ccTLD for India.
Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) allow domain names in non-Latin alphanumeric characters. They aim to make the internet more globally accessible by allowing people to use domain names in their own language or script. The string XN—H2BRJ9C8C is in Punycode format, a specific encoding used to convert Unicode characters to ASCII, which is compatible with the Domain Name System (DNS).
The domain XN—H2BRJ9C8C is an IDN ccTLD for India. The Indian government requested the specific string “भारतम्” (pronounced “Bharatam”), which is the Sanskrit stem form of India. The approved string was officially delegated to the National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI) on 6th August 2014 by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), the organization responsible for global coordination of the DNS Root, IP addressing, and other internet protocol resources.
The format XN—H2BRJ9C8C is converted from the Unicode “भारतम्” using the Punycode encoding. You might find it strange because it begins with the letters ‘xn’ followed by two hyphens. This is a part of the encoding protocol, so don’t be surprised if you see other seemingly random sequences of letters and numbers starting with ‘xn—’. They are just the Punycode encoded representation of Unicode strings.
Allowing such country-specific, non-Latin domain names is a big step toward universal access to the internet. Users can navigate and access web content in their own language script. This development significantly reduces barriers to internet access for millions of non-English speaking users, particularly those who use non-Latin script like Arabic, Cyrillic, Chinese, or in this case, Devanagari for Sanskrit and Hindi.
As of 2015, there were 39 IDN ccTLDs in the root zone of the DNS. India has been granted seven internationalized domain names by ICANN, and this domain you asked about is one of them.
To summarize, the TLD XN—H2BRJ9C8C is an IDN ccTLD for India. It is encoded from the Sanskrit term “भारतम्,” representing India. This represents a significant step toward a more inclusive and globally accessible internet.
Useful resources for constructing this answer include: IANA Root Zone Database (https://www.iana.org/domains/root/db), information on Internationalized Domain Names from the ICANN website (https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/idn-2012-02-25-en), and “Internationalizing the Internet” by Tina Dam (https://journals.uic.edu/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1910/1793).
